1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a print control method, and a program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Substitutive printing is a well-known technology that allows, when a first image forming apparatus receives a print job, a second image forming apparatus that is connected to the first image forming apparatus via a network or similar executes the print job. The substitutive printing makes it possible to select an image forming apparatus that executes a requested job from among, for example, a plurality of image forming apparatuses that have different functions and to execute the job using the selected image forming apparatus.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-235234 discloses a print control device, etc., that ranks printers in a particular order and selects the printer that executes the print job in accordance with the order. When a specified printer cannot execute the print job, the print control device that is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-235234 selects an alternative printer in accordance with the order and requests the alternative printer to execute the print job.
However, in the print control device, etc., disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-235234, even if, from the perspective of the user, there are various degrees of importance for each function specified by the print job, the degree of user-specified importance is not taken into consideration. If the function's degree of system-specified importance, which is represented by the order of the printers, is not accordant with the function's degree of user-specified importance, a function with a high degree of user-specified importance may not be implemented.